Category: social networking

Posted in digital parenting, grandparents, parents and technology, social media friends, social networking

Kids, Tech, Social Media, and Grandparents!

Posted on by Marti Weston
Read about my daughter and her grandmother on Facebook.

Great article in the Wall Street Journal about kids and grandparents and the ways they are communicating with one another. In her May 9, 2001 article, OMG! My Grandparents R My BFF!, reporter Molly Baker takes readers on a “magical mystery tour” highlighting the ways generations are interacting (and sometimes leaving out the generation in the middle).

Last August I wrote about this digital family experience in a post, Yes! Grandma is on Facebook, on my other blog, As Our Parents Age. Below is an excerpt of a post about my daughter and her grandmother.

Join Facebook?  For three years I avoided the site. I knew that some of my friends from work, church, and other activities were joining, but I just did not feel like it was a fit. My daughter, then in graduate school, used the social networking site, and she occasionally suggested I get started with Facebook. Still I refrained.

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Posted in answers to media questions, family conversations, parents and technology, social media, social networking

Social Media, bin Laden and Student Reactions

Posted on by Marti Weston
Read this Spotlight Blog post.

Are you looking for an interesting overview of the surreal celebrations on Sunday night, May 1, 2011 after the announcement about the death of Osama bin Laden?  Check out this post on the MacArthur Foundation’s Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning blog.

The Rise of Social Media and the Death of Osama bin Laden: Students Debate the Meaning of it All includes quotes, links to various media coverage, social media communication and helpful resources that shed some light on the spontaneous and unusually celebratory events that occurred around the United States.

A link to the NPR story on the celebrations takes readers to one of the most interesting comments, for me anyway. Part of one comment is below.

Mr. ADAM EVAN ANGLE (Student, Boston University): So I grew up under the specter of Osama bin Laden as the boogeyman. He was our Lord Vuldemort, if you will, like in Harry Potter, you know. He was pretty much the face of evil.

As a teacher and parent who lived through years with the Harry Potter phenomenon, I can completely understand this comment.

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Posted in data collecting, data sharing, digital parenting, media literacy, parents and technology, social media, social networking, teens and technology

Quiz: How Much do You Know About Social Media?

Posted on by Marti Weston
Take the quiz!

To get a sense of how much you really know about the social networking world and the movers and shakers who are actively developing and tweaking it, take a social media quiz. The Big Social Media Quiz over at the Liberate Media website.

A user needs 70% to pass this quiz, and though I know all sorts of minutia about social media, I only answered 50% of the questions correctly. Sigh!

Liberate Media is a PR firm with social media expertise.

Posted in American Academy of Pediatrics, digital parenting, media literacy, parent education, parents and technology, social media, social networking

Scary Headlines? Main Media Outlets Need Media Literacy Training!

Posted on by Marti Weston

Who writes these headlines? On it’s HealthyChildren.org site, The American Academy of Pediatrics comes out with a balanced, well-written, and thoughtful social media guide for physicians — one that encourages pediatricians to focus on wellness by paying attention to the media and social media activities of their patients, and this is the headline (at Time)?

“Facebook depression” is a small part of the policy statement, but the benefits and the learning opportunities offered by social media are a larger part. Rather than focusing on the positives and on the recommendations for moderation, the media is shouting out the negatives. My fifth grade media literacy students can run circles around these headline writers.

A recent US News and World Report article features a headline that is balanced and far more sensible.

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Posted in acceptable use, American Academy of Pediatrics, digital citizenship, digital parenting, parent education, parents and technology, social media, social networking

Pediatricians, Parents, and Digital Kids, Part I

Posted on by Marti Weston
AAP Media History Form

This morning I was thrilled to read the newest American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy focusing on social media and children. The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents and Families, written by a group of pediatricians and led by Gwenn Schurgin O’Keeffe (also the author of CyberSafe: Protecting and Empowering Digital Kids in the World of Texting, Gaming and Social Media), provides a set of social media guidelines for physicians to use with teen and tween patients as well as with parents. Published in March 28, 2011 edition of the journal Pediatrics, the social media statement describes the benefits and risks of the digital world, avoids judgmental comments, and suggests strategies that can make is safer for children.

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Posted in media literacy, parent child conversations, parents and technology, social media, social networking

Media Literate Disaster Discussions Balance Concern with Hope

Posted on by Marti Weston
NOAA Chart Comparing Distance from Earthquake Epicenter and Wave Height

After a disaster like the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear catastrophe in Japan, media — both social and traditional — saturate our lives. We process the events as radios and televisions blare the news and our smartphones, laptops, and computers constantly update. Paper editions of newspapers, quaintly behind the news cycle, nevertheless provide a kind of security, allowing us to hold a finite amount of news right in our hands — amounts we can process.

By the time children are in fourth or fifth grade, the pervasive media coverage ensures that almost nothing remains hidden for long, despite adult attempts to shield their children from the most frightening images. Media literacy matters at times such as these, but conversations with children about the news can still be challenging. I address this topic in an earlier post, Talking to Children About the News. That blog piece included online resources to support family discussions.

When a disaster occurs and the news churns on about it, I am always on the lookout for the unique article or media story that allows children balance concern and anxiety with hope and resilience.

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Posted in acceptable use, cultural changes, digital parenting, family conversations, parent child conversations, parents and technology, social media, social networking

Grandma/Grandkids Use Facebook: Do You?

Posted on by Marti Weston

Join Facebook?  For three years I avoided the site. I knew that some of my friends from work, church, and other activities were joining, and of course the kids at school were all over it, but I just did not feel like it was a fit. Way too different, I thought. My daughter, then in graduate school, used the social networking site, and she occasionally suggested I get started with Facebook (she spoke these words in bold). Still I refrained.

At some point, however, I became aware that my mother and my twenty-something daughter were communicating with each other more than usual. They knew things about each other that I did not know. Finally my daughter mentioned that her grandmother  — my mother — was on Facebook and that the two of them had “friended’ one another. That’s when I called Mom, at that time age 81. She explained that her fellow workers from the Obama campaign, exceptional young people she called them, had arranged virtual reunions on Facebook. They wanted her to participate and helped her get started.

So, like many of today’s parents, I found that I was in the middle, but basically out of the generational communication loop. By the time I tuned in, my mother had over 100 friends, all people she knew in one way or another (no strangers and privacy settings in place, she reassured me), and quite a few in her age-range. I signed up for Facebook.

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